And a voice of wisdom in the councils of the clans: "The sons of
men--they've come home from the Star Exodus. Our brothers."
The slivers of light, wave upon wave, crept into the eclipse shadow as
the twilight deepened and the stars stung through the blackening shell
of sky. When the moon rose, the people watched again as the silhouette
of a black double-vee of darts slipped across the lunar disk.
Beneath the ground, in response to the return of the ships, ancient
mechanisms whirred to life, and the tech guilds hurried to tend them. On
Earth, there was a suspenseful night, pregnant with the dissimilar twins
of hope and fear, laden with awe, hushed with the expectancy of twenty
thousand years. The stargoers--they had come home.
* * * * *
"_Kulturverlaengerung!_" grunted the tense young man in the toga of an
Analyst. He stood at one end of the desk, slightly flushed, staring down
at the haughty wing leader who watched him icily from a seat at the
other end. He said it again, too distinctly, as if the word were a club
to hurl at the wingsman. "_Kulturverlaengerung_, that's why!"
"I heard you the first time, Meikl," the officer snapped. "Watch your
tongue and your tone!"
A brief hush in the cabin as hostility flowed between them. There was
only the hiss of air from the ventilators, and the low whine of the
flagship's drive units somewhere below.
The erect and elderly gentleman who sat behind the desk cleared his
throat politely. "Have you any further clarifications to make, Meikl?"
he asked.
"It should be clear enough to all of you," the analyst retorted hotly.
He jerked his head toward the misty crescent of Earth on the viewing
screen that supplied most of the light in the small cabin. "You can see
what they are, what they've become. And you _know_ what _we_ are."
The two wingsmen bristled slightly at the edge of contempt in the
analyst's voice. The elderly gentlemen behind the desk remained
impassive, expressionless.
The analyst leaned forward with a slow accusing glance that swept the
faces of the three officers, then centered on his antagonist at the
other end of the desk. "You want to _infect_ them, ThaĆ¼le?" he demanded.
The wingsman darkened. His fist exploded on the desktop. "Meikl, you're
in contempt! Restrict yourself to answering questions!"
"Yes, sir."
"There will be no further breaches of military etiquette during the
continuance of this conference," the elderly gentleman announced icily,
thus seizing the situation.
After a moment's silence, he turned to the analyst again. "We've got to
refuel," he said flatly. "In order to refuel, we must land."
"Yes, sir. But why not on Mars? We can develop our own facilities for
producing fuel. Why must it be Earth?"
"Because there will be _some existing facilities_ on Earth, even though
they're out of space. The job would take five years on Mars."
The analyst lowered his eyes, shook his head wearily. "I'm thinking of a
billion earthlings. Aren't they worth considering, sir?"
"I've got to consider the men in my command, Meikl. They've been through
hell. We all have."
"The hell was our own making, baron."
"_Meikl!_"
"Sorry, sir."
Baron ven Klaeden paused ominously, then: "Besides, Meikl, your
predictions of disaster rest on certain assumptions not known to be
true. You assume that the recessive determinants still linger in the
present inhabitants. Twenty thousand years is a long time. Nearly a
thousand generations. I don't know a great deal about culturetics, but
I've read that _kulturverlaengerung_ reaches a threshold of extinction
after about a dozen generations, if there's no restimulation."
"Only in laboratory cultures, sir," sighed the analyst. "Under rigid
control to make certain there's no restimulant. In practice, in a
planet-wide society, there's constant accidental restimulation,
unconsciously occuring. A determinant gets restimulated, pops back to
original intensity, and gets passed on. In practice, a kult'laenger
linkage never really dies out--although, it can stay recessive and
unconscious."
"That's too bad," a wingsman growled sourly. "We'll wake it up, won't
we?"
"Let's not be callous," the other wingsman grunted in sarcasm. "Analyst
Meikl has sensitivities."
The analyst stared from one to the other of them in growing
consternation, then looked pleadingly at the baron. "Sir, I was
_summoned_ here to offer my opinions about landing on Earth. You asked
about possible cultural dangers. I've told you."
"You discussed the danger to earthlings."
"Yes, sir."
"I meant 'danger' to the personnel of this fleet--to their esprit, their
indoctrination, their group-efficiency. I take it you see none."
"On the contrary, I see several," said the analyst, coming slowly to his
feet, eyes flashing and darting among them. "Where were you born,
Wingman?" he asked the officer at the opposite end of the desk.
"Lichter Six, Satellite," the officer grunted after a moment of
irritable silence.
"And you?"
"Omega Thrush," said the other wingsman.
All knew without asking that the baron was born in space, his birthplace
one of the planetoid city-states of the Michea Dwarf. Meikl looked
around at them, then ripped up his own sleeve, unsheathed his
rank-dagger, and pricked his forearm with the needle point. A red
droplet appeared, and he wiped at it with a forefinger.
"It's common stuff, gentlemen. We've shed a lot of it. And each of us is
a walking sackful of it." He paused, then turned to touch the point of
his dagger to the viewer, where it left a tiny red trace on the glass,
on the bright crescent of Earth, mist-shrouded, chastely wheeling her
nights into days.
"It came from there," he hissed. "She's your womb, gentlemen. Are you
going back?"
"Are you an analyst or a dramatist, Meikl?" the baron asked sharply,
hoping to relieve the sudden chill in the room. "This becomes silly."
"If you land on her," Meikl promised ominously, "you'll go away with a
fleet full of hate."
Meikl's arm dropped to his side. He sheathed his dagger. "Is my presence
at this meeting still imperative, sir?" he asked the baron.
"Have you anything else to say?"
"Yes--_don't land on Earth_."
"That's a repetition. No further reasons?--in terms of danger to
ourselves?"
The analyst paused. "I can think of nothing worse that could happen to
us," he said slowly, "than just being what we already are."
He snapped his heels formally, bowed to the baron, and stalked out of
the cabin.
"I suggest," said a wingsman, "that we speak to Frewek about tightening
up the discipline in the Intelligence section. That man was in open
contempt, Baron."
"But he was also probably right," sighed the graying officer and
nobleman.
"_Sir--!_"
"Don't worry, Wingsman, there's nothing else to do. We'll have to land.
Make preparations, both of you--and try to make contact with surface.
I'll dictate the message."
When the wingsmen left, it was settled. The baron arose with a sigh and
went to peer morosely at the view of Earth below. Very delicately, he
wiped the tiny trace of blood from the glass. She was a beautiful world,
this Earth. She had spawned them all, as Meikl said--but for this, the
baron could feel only bitterness toward her.
But what of her inhabitants? I'm past feeling anything for them, he
thought, past feeling for any of the life-scum that creeps across the
surface of a world, any world. We'll go down quickly, and take what we
need quickly, and leave quickly. We'll try not to infect them, but
they've already got it in them, the dormant disease, and any infection
will be only a recurrence.
Nevertheless, he summoned a priest to his quarters. And, before going to
the command deck, he bathed sacramentally as if in preparation for
battle.
"_Your hawk's blude was never sae red,
Edward, Edward;
Your hawk's blude was never sae red,
My dear son, I tell thee, O."
"O I hae kill'd my red-roan steed,
Mither, mither;
O I hae kill'd my red roan steed,
That erst was sae fair and free, O._"
--ANONYMOUS
False dawn was in the east when the slivers of light appeared once again
out of the eclipse shadow to rake majestically across the heavens, and
again the children of Earth crowded in teeming numbers from the quiet
gardens to chatter their excitement at the wonder in the sky. But this
time, a message came. The men of the tech clans who tended the newly
activated mechanisms heard it, and the mechanisms memorized it, and
played it again and again for the people, while the linguists puzzled
over the unidentified language used in the transmission.
PROPAUTH EARTH FROM COMMSTRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACE, KLAEDEN COMM,
PRESENTS GREETINGS!
IF YOU HAVE RECORDS, OUR USE OF ANCIENT ANGLO-GERMANIC SHOULD
MAKE OUR IDENTITY CLEAR. HAVE YOU FUELING FACILITIES FOR 720
SHIPS OF THOR-NINE CLASS? IF NOT, WE SHALL DEVELOP FACILITIES
FROM LOCAL RESOURCES, WITH, WE TRUST, YOUR PEACEFUL
COOPERATION. THIS CADRE NOT REIMMIGRATING, BUT EN ROUTE TO
URSAN STARS. REQUEST LANDING SUGGESTIONS, IN VIEW OF OUR
FUELING NEEDS.
REQUEST INTELLIGENCE CONCERNING PRESENT LEVEL OF TERRESTRIAL
CULTURE. OUR ORIBITAL OBSERVATIONS INDICATE A STATIC
AGRARIAN-TECHNICAL COMPLEX, BUT DETAILS NOT AVAILABLE. WE COME
IN ARMS, BUT WITHOUT ENMITY. PLEASE REPLY, IF POSSIBLE.
ERNSTLI BARON VEN KLAEDEN, COMMANDING STRAFEFLEET THREE,
SPACESTRIKE COMMAND, IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION
* * * * *
So it came, repeated continuously for an hour, followed by an hour of
silence, and then by another hour of repetition. The linguists were
unable to discern meanings. Thousands of memorizers were consulted, but
none knew the words of the harsh voice from the ships. At last, the
sages consulted the books and memnoscripts in the ancient vaults,
pouring over tomes that had been buried for countless centuries. After
hours of hurried study....
"It is found, _it is found_, a tongue of the ancients!" a joyous cry in
the glades and the garden pathways.
Happily, the sages recorded the linguistic structure of the forgotten
tongue on memnoscript, and gave it to a servo translator. Outmoded
mechanisms were being brought out of wraps and prepared for use. The
servos supplied a translation of the message, and the sages studied it.
"It is badly understood," was the curious mutter along the garden
pathways.
"Many words have no words to match them, nor any thoughts that are
similar," was the only explanation the sages could give.
In translation the message seemed meaningless, or unfathomable. Only one
thing was clear. The sons of Man meant to descend again upon the world
of their ancestors. There was a restless unease in the gardens, and
groups of elders gathered in the conference glades to mutter and glance
at the sky. "Invite our brothers to land," was the impetuous cry of the
young, but there were dissenters.
In the Glade of Sopho, a few thoughtful clansmen of Pedaga had gathered
to muse and speak quietly among themselves, although it was not
ordinarily the business of tutors to consider problems that confronted
society as a whole, particularly problems arising outside society
itself. The Pedaga were teachers of the very young, and deliberately
kept themselves childlike in outlook in order to make fuller contact
with the children in their charge.
"I think we should tell them to go away," said Letha, and looked around
at the others for a response.
She got nothing in reply but a flickering glance from Marrita, who sat
morosely on a cool rock by the spring, her chin on her bare knees. Evon
gave her a brief polite smile, to acknowledge the sound of her voice,
but he returned almost at once to absently tearing twigs and glancing up
at the bits of sky that showed through the foliage of the overhanging
trees. Iak and Karrn were whispering together at the far end of the
glade, and had not heard her.
Letha shrugged and leaned back against the tree trunk again, sitting
spraddle-legged this time in the hope of catching Evon's eye. She was a
graceful girl, and while gracefulness is sometimes feline, Letha's was
more nearly kittenish. She was full-bodied and soft, but well-shaped in
spite of a trace of plumpness. Thick masses of black hair fell over
baby-skin shoulders in a pleasing contrast, and while her face was a bit
too round, it radiated a gentle, winning grin, and the sympathetic gaze
of gray-blue eyes. Now she seemed ready to pout. Evon remained
self-absorbed.
"I think we should tell them to go away," she repeated a little sharply.
"They'll all be big and swashbuckling and handsome, and the children
will become unmanageable as soon as they see them. All the little girls
will swoon, and all the little boys will want to go with them."
Evon glanced at her briefly. "It's up to the elders of the Geoark," he
muttered without interest, and prepared to return to his own
meditations.
"And all the _big_ girls will run away with them," she purred with a
tight smile, and stretched a languorous leg out in front of her to
waggle her foot.
Evon shot her a quick glance, held it for a moment, then looked skyward
again. She pursed her lips in irritation and glared at him. Gradually,
she forgave him. Evon was distraught. He _must_ be--because she hadn't
seen him sit still this long in years. He was _always_ doing something,
or looking for something to do. It wasn't like Evon just to sit still
and think. He was a restless, outgoing fellow, nearly always reacting
boisterously, or laughing his staccato laugh. Now he just sat there and
looked puzzledly in the direction of the sky-fleet. Looking puzzled
didn't fit his face, somehow. It was a bony brown face, slightly oily,
with a long narrow jaw that jutted forward like a plowshare under an
elastic smirk. It was a rubbery kind of a face, the kind that could
twist into horrid masks for the amusement of the young. Now it just
drooped.
She stirred restlessly, driven to seek sympathetic understanding.
"You wonder what it's like, Evon?" she asked.
He grunted at her quizzically and shook his head.
"To be one of the children of the Exodus, I mean," she added.
"_Me?_ What _are_ you thinking of, Letha?"
"Of your face. It looks suddenly like a nomad's face. You remind me of
an old schnorrer who used to wander through our gardenboro every year to
play his fiddle, and sing us songs, and steal our chickens."
"I don't fiddle."
"But your eyes are on the sky-fleet."
Evon paused, hovering between irritation and desire to express. "It's
strange," he murmured at last. "It's as if I know them--the star-birds,
I mean. Last night, when I saw them first, it was like looking at
something I expected to happen ... or ... or...."
"Something familiar?"
"Yes."
"You think he has the genemnemon, Marrita?" she asked the blonde girl
who sat on the cool rock by the spring.
Marrita looked up from dabbling her toes in the icy trickle. "I don't
believe in the genemnemon. My great grandfather was a thief."
"How silly! What's that to do with it?"
"He buried a fortune, they say. If there was a genemnemon, I'd remember
where he buried it, wouldn't I?" She pouted, and went back to dabbling a
club toe in the spring.
Evon snorted irritably and arose to stretch. "We lie around here like
sleepy pigs!" he grumbled. "Have the Pedaga nothing to do but wait on
the Geoark to make up its mind?"
"What do you think they'll do?"
"The Geoark? Invite the strangers to land. What else could they do?"
"Tell them to go away."
"And suppose they chose not to go?"
The girl looked bewildered. "I can't imagine anyone refusing the
Geoark."
"Maybe they've got their own Geoark. Why should they cooperate with
ours?"
"_Two_ Geoarks? What a strange idea."
"Is it strange that you and I should have two brains? Or were you aware
that I have one too?"
"Evon! What a _strange_ idea."
He seized her by the ankles and dragged her squealing to the spring,
then set her down in the icy trickle. Marrita moved away, grumbling
complaints, and Letha snatched up a switch and chased him around the
glade, shrieking threats of mayhem, while Evon's laughter broke the
gloomy air of the small gathering, and caused a few other Pedaga to
wander into the clearing from the pathways.
"I think we should prepare a petition for the Geoark," someone
suggested.
"About the sky-fleet? And who knows what to say?"
"I'm afraid," said a girl. "Somehow I'm suddenly afraid of them."
"Our brothers from the Exodus? But they're _people_--such as you and I."
So went the voices. After an hour, a crier came running through the
glade to read another message received from the sky-fleet.
PROPAUTH EARTH FROM COMMSTRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACE, KLAEDEN COMM,
PRESENTS GREETINGS!
HAVING RECEIVED NO ANSWER TO OUR PREVIOUS COMMUNICATION, WE
HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LAND AT ONCE. I AM IMPOSING AN
INFORMATIONAL QUARANTINE TO AVOID RESTIMULATING POSSIBLE
RECESSIVE KULTURVERLAENGERUNG, BUT SUGGEST YOU GUARD
YOURSELVES. OUR CULTURES HAD A COMMON ORIGIN. WE COME IN ARMS,
WITHOUT ENMITY.
ERNSTLI BARON VEN KLAEDEN, COMMANDING STRAFEFLEET THREE,
SPACESTRIKE COMMAND IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION
This was even more mystifying than the previous one, even less
meaningful in translation. One thing was clear, however: the fleet was
going to land, without invitation.
Embarrassed, the elders of the Geoark immediately called the tech clans.
"Can you revive the devices that speak across space?" they asked.
"They are revived," answered the tech clans.
"Then let us speak to our brothers from space."
And so it was that the people of the gardens of Earth sang out: